Whether you watch the video or follow the guide, or both, this article is going to give you a step-by-step guide on how to produce your very own magazine front cover in Photoshop. A lot of people prefer to use InDesign for front covers however I’ve always used Photoshop and it also means if you’ve only had experience using Photoshop and still want to make a cool front cover this video/guide is perfect for you.
What you’ll need to complete this
· Photoshop
· An image for your front cover
Step 1 – Creating Our Front Cover File
Assuming you have Photoshop open you’ll want to create a new file for the base of your front cover. You need to have settings as shown below.
Step 2 – Input Your Cover Image
Once you have your file created you are going to put the cover image you had prepared into Photoshop so that we can begin to work on it. If you haven’t got a cover image but still want to make a cover, look for an image of your favourite celebrity or of yourself that looks like it could go on a front cover. I consider this to be the most important part of any front cover so it is important that the image the image is clear and of a high resolution.
Step 3 – Find Your Style
If you haven’t made a magazine cover before and I assume you haven’t as you’re using this guide to help you, but even if you have, you need figure what you want your magazine to look like. If you don’t already know how you want to style your cover, go to Google for a bit of help and look at the genre of magazine yours most closely fits into to give yourself some inspiration and something to refer back to as you go through the process of making the cover.
Step 4 – Putting Your Guides In
Now that you’ve picked the style and you have your front cover photo in Photoshop, you need to put your guidelines in place so that the content can be organised neatly. You can drag down from left to right and from top to bottom from the rulers, to access the guidelines, if they aren’t showing simply press Ctrl/Cmd +R they should appear on screen. Place your lines 50mm in from the edge of your cover on each side of your image.
Step 5 – Give it a Name
Now you have your cover prepared to have content added to it, you need to give it a name. This is completely up to you name it whatever you want, I just suggest the name not be too long so you can have it in a decent sized font, and it not pass the guides on your cover. Using the text tool write the name of your magazine and put it at the top of the cover in a font you like.
Step 6 – Styling Your Name
Now your magazine has a name you are going to want to style so it looks just right, there are two things you are going to want to use for this, the Character window as well as Layer Effects. You can access Layer Effects by double clicking the layer with your text in and you can find the Character options in the Window section in the menu bar. With the Effects settings you can add things like strokes, drop shadows and glows, play around with these and find what suits your cover best. With the Character window you can change the font, font size, spacing between letters and stretch them up and down which gives you more freedom and ability to make the name fit the space you want it and style it the way you wish.
Step 7 – Pick Your Stories
Look at the magazine you want yours to resemble and see how many stories they have on the front cover and roughly where they’re placed. This will you give a foundation to work from so you start tying everything together and moving towards your finished piece. When adding in the stories a good thing to do is format them in a way where they aren’t obstructing your model and instead fill in the empty space around them.
Step 8 – Styling and Fonts
This is where your cover will start to look like more of a magazine. In this stage we are going to look at our inspiration piece and try and mimic some the styling techniques they have used, this can be any underling, boxes or highlights, shapes, and anything that they have used to make the headings of the stories look good. We are going to do the same with the fonts, we are going to see what fonts they’ve used for each of their headings and try use similar ones. You can also use the character window which you opened early to edit the size and spacing of the headings where needed as well as the colour. When changing the colours, I suggest aiming to keep to a colour scheme on the cover as this make it look much more professional.
Extra – If you know how to, you can download fonts from the internet to find more accurate or preferable fonts for your cover.
Step 9 – Added Details
Now your cover is starting to look a bit more like a real magazine we are going to want to add some extra details that your cover may have, like, a barcode, the date and issue number of your magazine. If there is anything specific to the magazine cover that isn’t covered in this guide, I apologise but still try your best to recreate it if you want to.
Step 10 – Finishing touches
Your magazine cover is almost complete and now is the time for your finishing touches if you want to make your model be over the name of your magazine or any of the headings, use the cut tool to cut around them, copy the section of them you wish to have above the text on a new layer and then put that layer above the text. If you haven’t already added any dividers around your text if needed add them now. After you’ve completed all the finishing touches you should then have your magazine cover created. Well done!
Extra - I would like to point out the more time you spend on your cover the better it will look, patience is needed when starting out so don’t worry if you’re taking the time, you need.
Finsihed Piece
Thank you for using this guide and I hope you found it helpful, if there is anything I missed or you specifically need help with, please let me know through the ABOUT page or any of my social medias and I’ll do my best to help.